Thank you everyone who helped make our 2016 conference, ‘Ideas and Realities: Creative Writing in Asia Today’, such a great success. We’ve posted feedback below from some of the 120 writers, publishers, editors, literary agents and others from some 20 countries who took part. We received praise for the mix of panels, workshops, readings, book launches and dinners. Most especially for the friendliness of the this ‘confest’—as some now call our annual events.
Thanks especially to Dai Fan, Director of Sun Yat-sen University’s School of Creative Writing in English, who hosted us so generously and professionally at her beautiful Guangzhou campus.
Thanks also for support from Alexandra Büchler, Director of Literature Across Frontiers (LAF). She introduced us to David Lopez-del Amo, Director of the Beijing-based literary agency Sinicus, who organised for four Chinese authors to join us. Their contribution was among the highlights for some of us.
We also thank the Australia Council for the Arts for their generous support which enabled us to bring eight Australians to the conference. In all, there were 25 Australians at this year’s conference, accounting for the strongest country representation. We were honoured and grateful that Australia’s Consul-General in Guangzhou, Dominic Trindade, joined us for the conference opening.
Others we especially thank are Neeta Gupta, Director of Jaipur’s Bookmark Festival, and representatives of our inaugural Core Partner universities, Lucy Neave from the Australian National University, Julienne Van Loon from RMIT, and Sally Breen from Griffith University. We were also pleased and thankful for the continued support of the Writers Centre Norwich, represented by Kate Griffin who assisted with the translation workshop (run by James Shea and Kyoko Yoshida).